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posted by martyb on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:24AM   Printer-friendly
from the It's-a-meat-wave! dept.

WKBW-TV reports:

Some new numbers are showing that the U.S. has more than 2.5 billion lbs [1.1 million metric tons] of meat in cold storage warehouses, and it's all because Americans aren't eating enough to keep up with supply.

Another reason is that the trade situation is chipping away at global demand.

[...] The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects the industry will produce a record 102.7 billion pounds of meat this year.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by zocalo on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:58AM (6 children)

    by zocalo (302) on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:58AM (#712981)
    Pretty sure the US already has that - most first world countries do. What's missing from the story (if you can call it that - pretty much the entire thing is in the summary) are some rather critical data points; what's the normal amount of meat waiting in cold storage for shipment, how fast is the stockpile growing, and how much of the excess is due to falling US consumption vs. falling exports. I'm sure someone is going to blame all this personally on Trump sooner or even sooner for starting a trade war, but if the bulk of it is down to US consumption levels then maybe that argument isn't really supported and the "Fake News" dismissals will be supportable for once.

    Also, it's worth pointing out that if supply is exceeding demand then the stuff will keep piling up because the farms sure as heck are not going to slow production until the price people pay for it falls below the point where all the sellers and middlemen can still turn a profit. JIT warehouses generally work on a FIFO basis, so that means everyone is going to be eating meat that will have sat in an over-sized freezer that you personally have no idea of how sanitary it might really be for longer and longer until the backlog is cleared. Something to keep in mind before you pull that rare and bloody hunk of meat off the BBQ and drop it on a plate this summer.
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    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:56PM (1 child)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:56PM (#713060) Journal

    Something to keep in mind before you pull that rare and bloody hunk of meat off the BBQ and drop it on a plate this summer.

    A bit of a digression, but if you're talking about a solid hunk of beef (like a steak), the vast majority of bacterial contamination present is generally on the surface. A surface sear on a grill (or very hot pan or whatever) will be sufficient to make the meat safe to eat. If that weren't so, Americans would suffer food poisoning at much greater rates by eating medium-rare or rare steak.

    Things are different for things like a hamburger, where the interior is likely to be contaminated during processing. That's why various food safety organizations recommend higher cooking temperatures or pasteurization steps to ensure safe burgers... And why ground beef is frequently a source of outbreaks.

    Also, you referenced an "oversized freezer" for storage: bacteria don't grow in freezing temperatures and most commercial meat stored that way is vacuum-packed in primal or subprimal cuts at wholesale before being broken down and repackaged for retail sale. A vacuum-sealed hunk of beef is not going to accumulate more bacteria or become more unsafe whether it's stored for a few days or a few months. (Though eventually quality may begin to degrade.)

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:19PM

      by zocalo (302) on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:19PM (#713070)
      Assuming it's similar to the UK, then meat storage is going to depend on the type of meat and the specific storage facility. Another thing the article doesn't mention is what stages of the processing the storage backlog is occuring - are we talking whole carcasses from the abatoir, at some other step on the way to the store, or at all stages of the process (which seems most likely for a JIT distribution model)? In the ideal case the complete carcass from the abatoir is cleaned and hung as-is in a regularly cleaned walk-in freezer arrangement until it's ready to be processed into the packs you usually see on the shelf, shipped to a butchers, etc. at which point it moves rapidily through the system until it reaches a consumer. When corners are being cut it's usually things like the temperature and level of sanitation that are the first things to go because they cost money to do properly and it's about the only "slack" in the system the distribution network owner can control. In one particularly extreme case that made the news over here a few years back, chicken carcasses (of all things!) were simply piled on a concrete floor in temperatures that were insufficiently low to prevent bacterial growth and rot to the point that the resultant sludge was literally running out from under the pile and across the floor.
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      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:47PM (1 child)

    by Whoever (4524) on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:47PM (#713124) Journal

    Also, it's worth pointing out that if supply is exceeding demand then the stuff will keep piling up because the farms sure as heck are not going to slow production until the price people pay for it falls below the point where all the sellers and middlemen can still turn a profit.

    The market is going to be distorted by Trump's new welfare for farmers, so expect more and more meat to pile up in cold storage.

    • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:56PM

      by fyngyrz (6567) on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:56PM (#713359) Journal

      The market is going to be distorted by Trump's new welfare for farmers and ranchers, so expect more and more meat to pile up in cold storage.

      FTFY

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:42PM (#713245)

    What's missing from the story

    If they included these things, their might not be a story.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:51PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:51PM (#713250) Journal

    and how much of the excess is due to falling US consumption vs. falling exports.

    US meat consumption is UP! [bloomberg.com]

    It's entirely driven by exports being reduced.

    FTA: The U.S. meat industry has been meat more reliant on exports in recent years, but Mexico and China — which are some of the largest foreign buyers of meat — have both set tariffs on pork products. The tariffs were in response to U.S. tariffs on steel, aluminum, and other products.

    Pretty sure that's related to Trump's dumbass trade war (and that someone is desperately trying to get in front of this story considering the summary is a blatant lie)